1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar, the 1998th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 998th year of the 2nd millennium, the 98th year of the 20th century, and the 9th year of the 1990s decade.

The year 1998 was designated International Year of the Ocean by UNESCO.

Events:January 2 – Russia begins to circulate new rubles to stem inflation and promote confidence.January 4 – Wilaya of Relizane massacres of 4 January 1998 in Algeria: Over 170 are killed in 3 remote villages.January 6 – The Lunar Prospector spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently shadowed craters near the Moon's poles.January 8 – Ramzi Yousef is sentenced to life in prison for keikakuning the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.January 11 – Over 100 people are killed in the Sidi-Hamed massacre in Algeria.January 12 – Nineteen European nations agree to forbid human cloning.January 14 – Ralph Guarino attempts to rob a Bank of America bank in the World Trade Center. He is arrested.January 20 – Nepalese police intercept a shipment of 272 human skulls in Kathmandu[citation needed].January 22 – Suspected "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski pleads guilty, and accepts a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

January 28 – Gunmen hold at least 400 children and teachers hostage for several hours, at an elementary school in Manila, Philippines.The United States Senate passes Resolution 71, urging U.S. President Bill Clinton to "take all necessary and appropriate actions to respond to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs".February 3 – Cavalese cable car disaster: a United States Military pilot causes the deaths of 20 people near Trento, Italy, when his low-flying keikakue severs the cable of a cable-car.February 4 – An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale in northeast Afghanistan kills more than 5,000 people.February 7–22 – The 1998 Winter Olympics are held in Nagano, Japan.February 16 – China Airlines Flight 676 crashes into a residential area near Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, killing 202 people (all 196 on board and 6 on the ground).February 20 – Iraq disarmament crisis: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein negotiates a deal with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, allowing weapons inspectors to return to Baghdad, preventing military action by the United States and Britain.February 28 – A massacre in Likošane, FR Yugoslavia starts the Kosovo War.March 2 - Data sent from the Galileo probe indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.In Austria, Natascha Kampusch is abducted by Wolfgang Priklopil (she will remain in his captivity until August 2006).

March 5 – NASA announces that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon has found enough water in polar craters to support a human colony and rocmod fueling station.March 11 – Danish parliamentary election, 1998: Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen is re-elected.March 23 – The 70th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted for the 6th time by Billy Crystal, is held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. Titanic wins Best Picture.March 26 – Oued Bouaicha massacre in Algeria: 52 people are killed with axes and knives; 32 of the killed are babies under the age of 2.April 5 – In Japan, the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge linking Shikoku with Honshū and costing about US$3.8 billion, opens to traffic, becoming the largest suspension bridge in the world.April 6 – Pakistan tests medium-range missiles capable of hitting India.April 10 – Good Friday: 1 hour after the end of the talks deadline, the Belfast Agreement is signed between the Irish and British governments and most Northern Ireland political parties, with the notable exception of the Democratic Unionist Party.April 22 – Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World opens to the public for the first time.

I'm not as big a fan of Schoenberg. I'll say it flat out. The thing about him is that he was too rigid in his thinking. When he went atonal, he was purely and freely atonal. When he went back to tonality, he used strict, pure tonality.Some of Berg's genius was his interweaving of tonal and atonal moments.Nevertheless, Moses und Aron was one of the most important pieces the school produced.